CAP 25 - Part 9 - CAP 25f Full Movepool Submissions

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spin, spin, spin

NEW: This is a Celebration CAP, meaning that we are going out of our way to break some rules. We'll be creating a set of three Pokemon this time around, a set of Fire, Water, and Grass-type starters! You can read exactly which rules we'll be breaking here and the logic behind Celebration CAPs here. Give these a read-through to get some context.

This is the thread for making full movepools for our upcoming CAP, Smokomodo! At the conclusion of this thread, our Movepool Leader cbrevan will be compiling a slate of Final Submissions for the community to vote on, and the winning submission will become the official movepool for 25f.

We recently made significant changes to our policies regarding movepools, so do not assume that rules from past CAP projects apply. See this Policy Review thread for more information about the new rules.

We've had a discussion of movesets, which identified the competitive movesets we intend to be the most viable in standard OU play. Please see the concluding post in that thread, as well as the following poll, for more information on those movesets.

The following rules apply to all Movepool Submissions:

The movepool can contain a maximum of 85 total moves. You may have less than or equal to 85 moves, but not more.

There are no longer any limits to the number of Restricted Moves, as mentioned in articles on the CAP subsite and past CAP projects.

All movepools must have all the Mandatory Moves listed below.

No movepool may contain any of the Banned Moves listed below.

Any move not listed as Banned is provisionally allowed.

The Movepool Leader cbrevan and Topic Leader reachzero may add Banned moves during the course of this thread. If that happens, there will be ample notification in the thread, and you will have the opportunity to remove those moves from your movepool prior to final submissions.

Final Movepool Submissions must include all of these moves, and they cannot be Event Moves. Submissions that don't have all these moves will not be considered for slating.

Note that any move which is competitively inferior to a mandatory move is allowed as an exception to the bans above unless explicitly stated otherwise. This includes things such a weaker versions of mandatory STAB and coverage moves.

Description: This CAP is not one Pokemon, but three seperate Pokemon, based off of a Grass/Water/Fire starter trio.

Explanation: There is rarely such thing as a competitively viable starter Pokemon in the OU metagame, rare exceptions being Serperior, Greninja, and Blaziken for their insanely powerful abilities, and Infernape for his speed and movepool. Running three seperate CAP Processes with different Concepts can be loads of fun, and a nice way to celebrate CAP with our own starter trio! I'd love to see what the artists can come up with, and what pre-evos will be made alongside this trio, as well.
I've spoken to Birkal about this framework, and I've decided that this framework would definitely limit the Typing stage of each CAP, but not necessarily limit the Abilities stages, as Overgrow, Torrent, and Blaze aren't very competitively viable, and not necessarily limit the Stats stages, as starter trios tend not to share the same BSTs, giving us flexibility with where and how we want to place stats, especially with each "starter" most likely having a different concept from the others.

Possible Questions:
Is it possible to create a fully competitively viable Grass/Water/Fire trio?
What can be learned from a trio of Pokemon that will mostly likely check, if not counter, each other in a Rock Paper Scissors manner?
Exactly what does it take to create a fully competitively viable starter trio, something unprecedented in all of official, competitive Pokemon?

Of course, feedback is all but begged for as we work to flesh out this framework!

Description - These Pokemon each maximize the potential of their given, separate abilities by coordinating their movepools and that ability's competitive effect.

Justification - This is an Actualization concept much like Cyclohm's original "Neglected Ability." In my research on what made Pokemon with "Starter Level" stats effective, the common denominator was they all had abilities they used to full effect with their other competitive aspects. This framework gives us a unique opportunity to A-B test some fairly powerful abilities we usually shy away from and bring out an effective competitive starter trio.

Questions To Be Answered -

Which Abilities are best suited to a full, comprehensive exploration of their specific mechanics?

Why does Ability seem to be the common factor in taking "starter-esque" Pokemon into prominence (e.g. Protean and Battle Bond Greninja, Contrary Serperior, Speed Boost Blaziken to Ubers, etc.)

What is the threshold where maximizing an ability goes toi far, such as Blaziken's combination of Swords Dance, strong attack and mid-grade speed, and high BP STABS with Speed Boost or Protean Greninja's huge speed and just-varied enough movepool in prior Generations?

How will introducing three specialized Pokemon into the metagame at once impact it overall?

Which type combinations along with the starter types are best suited to maximizing the potential of a specific ability, and why?

Explanation - Competitive Pokemon has suffered from a massive power creep for a long time. In order for a Pokemon to be effective, not only does it have to be fairly good generally, it also can't be directly outclassed. Considering our Framework, our Pokemon are already competing against Heatran/Volcarona, Toxapex/Keldeo/Greninja, and Ferrothorn/Kartana for offensive or defensive roles. However, each of those Pokemon have their own flaws that give our FWG CAP Trio space to explore if we are focused on a key niche for each of them.

Let's take Grass for example, and Tough Claws. Tough Claws boosts one of the most incredibly CAP-relevant moves, Grass Knot, because it is a special contact attack. Only Mega Metagross ever even came close to utilizing this combination, and Mega-Meta was banned (for other reasons, of course). Grass could also use it's huge number of healing options with Triage, including priority Strength Sap that even outruns Bullet Punch. Nearly every Fire attack has a secondary effect chance perfect for Serene Grace or Sheer Force. Water has a few specific moves that would also love Serene Grace, but would also appreciate breaking through Gastrodon and Mollux with Mold Breaker. Suffice it to say, this concept gives us an ability to meet our Framework demands and think through a huge combination of synergistic types and abilities in a single project.

spin, spin, spin

Welcome to movepool submissions for Smokomodo! In this thread we will create submissions for Smokomodo's movepool to determine what moves it will have available to it. At the end of this thread I'll compile a slate of all the legal entries for us to vote on, so make sure you carefully read the thread OP for submission instructions.

This is a flavour stage first and foremost, so feel free to delve as deep into trends, lore, and what not when making your post. My only requirement for the flavour part of this stage is that posters take the time to explain their decisions when choosing what moves to add and moves to neglect in their movepool. I won't slate movepools that lack reasoning, and you're better off giving an explanation anyways since thats something voters will look for.

While this is a flavor stage, there is a minor competitive aspect to it in that the banned moves list is not all encompassing. I'm sure some people have noticed that moves such as Quiver Dance are not banned- this is intentional. It's not possible for the TLT to ban every single competitive move, which is why we'll handle moves as they are submitted. The general rule for this stage is that posters should exercise common sense when building movepools and avoid moves that are competitively viable in nature. I'll define competitively viable moves as moves that are able to interact with our threatlist with noticeable results, so if you're unsure about a move, take a look at the threatlist and ask yourself what matchups it may swing. If you're unsure, tag me in the thread and I'll give a ruling. If you think a move banned this way should be allowed, I'm also willing to hear appeals posted in the thread.

Make sure you include all the mandatory moves in the OP, including the universal and starter moves for this stage. Likewise, double check to make sure your movepool lacks any of the banned moves listed in the OP. Also make sure you put Final Submission on your movepool before the thread closes. I hate disqualifying good movepools for such a simple mistake and I'll do my best to check movepools prior to the deadline, but keep in mind that I'll be managing three threads and could very well miss something. Check your own movepools to be safe!

My movepool follows a similar level up pattern to the newest Fire-type starters like Delphox and Incineroar, while heavily referencing it's chameleon and volcanic design. We'll start with a bunch of low base power moves and support options and a powerful option in Eruption, similar to how Incineroar's movepool progresses. Lava Plume is the evolution move of choice, referencing the volcanic aesthetic of the design. As the movepool progresses, it gets access to more weaker options such as Lick, which is common on lizard and tough pokemon such as Kecleon and Gengar, respectively, and Smog. It gains more powerful options towards the middle of the movepool - with STAB options such as Flame Wheel and Magnitude -, as well as the support move Swagger, which I personally think fits the design quite nicely. As it levels up even further, it gains more powerful moves in Slash (common in designs with claws), Earthquake and Flare Blitz for power STAB options, as well as Camouflage - referencing it's chameleon design. Later, it gets Fissure - which is a nice flavor move - as well as Burn Up, referencing scorched earth and dead volcanoes.

CAP25f-1 - Fire Spin
CAP25f-1, CAP25f-2 - Clear Smog

Fire Spin is a weak, trapping, Fire-type move that was in one of our approved movesets. It is seen as a "by a prior evolution" move in other Fire-type pokemon such as Blaziken. Clear Smog is also in one of the approved sets, and can also reference it's design. Nothing much else to say about it.

Given to how this is a celebration CAP and Celebrate was one of the approved sets (it is also only available via events), I gave it in two separate events. As discussed in Discord, that is a good way to not mess w/ Caribolt's movepool as well.
The second event is to celebrate women empowerment and honor the brazilian Maria da Penha law, that protects women from domestic violence. Maria da Penha is an amazing woman who spoke up about the domestic abuse she was suffering and that led to the creation of this extremely important law, which is referenced by the OT (Penha) and ID (11340/60).
Thank you Dogfish44 for kindly allowing me to use your event teamplate!

I added a lot of Fighting- and Poison-type moves for flavor. Fighting-type coverage doesn't mess with our threatlist and approved movesets and neither does Poison-type coverage, since Gunk Shot (the most powerful, physical, Poison-type move) was already allowed. I wanted to reference it's tough design with Fighting-type moves and the komodo reference in it's name with more Poison-type moves like Sludge Bomb and Poison Jab.
I disallowed any powerful Dark- and Ghost-type coverage like Shadow Claw, Thief and Brutal Swing since, as already discussed, these moves shouldn't be allowed given how they easily break through the Lati@s.

I decided to put 25f on the Field egg group as it's designs fits with the rest of the group extremely well, as well as giving it the movepool options it needed. Dragon egg group was added mainly for flavor, given how similar it is to other pokemon in the Dragon egg group, but also allowed it to get some of the required moves.
The breeding moves are mostly moves that I don't think would particularly fit with the design by themselves to be in the level up section, so I added them via breeding.

*A ROM hack has the potential to include in-game means of obtaining this move on starters, like a special move tutor teaching it as a reward for, say, completing the regional pokedex. I also don't see a ROM hack using mystery gift or some equivalent much. As a result, I put it in move tutors. This would remove incompatibilities between Celebrate and Egg moves, but if there's important reasons to keep those incompatabilities, it may be removed from move tutors.

Smokomodo is primarily based on Chameleons, specifically the Jackson's chameleon, and volcanic phenomena. So I went with that. Each of my starters has a particular pattern with their level up moves - they start out with a certain number of heart scale moves, the first being a primary STAB attack that is also their Evo Move. Then they have four attacks at zero level, one off flavourful off STAB or utility attack, followed by the three basic attacks that Gen VII starters learn (Normal Attack, stat debuff and elemental attack)

Heart Scale and Evo Moves
The Heart Scale moves hold the moves that are a little awkward to fit into level up. Eruption and Magnitude highlight the volcanic / seismic aspect of Smokomodo, Morning Sun deals with sunbathing, a common action done by reptiles. Storm and Circle Throw is a clever nod to Komodo dragons, Smokomodo's namesake and theor habit for grappling and wrestling their opponent (credits for Frostbiyt for catching that). The Evo Move is to show that upon evolution, Smokomodo has complete control over its volcanic tendancies. I chose Metal Claw as the off STAB starting attack due to the tail being an integral part of a chameleon's design, and neat hint at iron casting.

Starting out early
Smokomodo's early movepool mostly deals with beginning volcanic stuff and chameleon vibes. Smokescreen is a neat basic attack for volcanic flavour, then a cool tongue highlight with Lick, Smog shows its smoke is now toxic, and wraps up with its first Ground attack it learns at the first evolution.

Top Kek Chameleon
At this point, Smokomodo learns Flame Whell and Bulldoze, classic earlier attacks for Fire and Ground types alike. It learns Flame Burst next, showing that its more explosive tendencies have awoken, and finishes up with learning Lava Plume before evolution showing that its practically mastered its volcano powers.

Chameleo Dragon(?)
Finally Smokomodo realises its full potential, learning a bunch of powerful Fire and Ground attacks. It also notably gains Camouflage at this point. The late level stat debuff i chose for Smok is Screech, a common attack amongst lizards. I capped its movepool with Fissure, showing its sheer tectonic strength.

Field and Monster are the best fit for Smokomodo - many reptiles are in field egg group and it was called the "Ground" egg group in the past. I chose Monster over Dragon because i think the Dragon egg group implies a certain amount of Dragon flavour that would be rather dangerous given our check list. On to the egg moves themselves, its basically a dump for all of the not so flavourful mandatory attacks. The chief stand out is by far Bone Rush. Bone Rush is a rather controversial attack, with people claiming to call it uncompetitive. Bone Rush hits 3 times an average of 66% of the time, a 10% chance to miss, a 1/6 chance of hitting at a weak base power and a combined 30% chance of pushing to a higher BP. Just like Blizzard, roughly 70% of the time it does what is intended. Bone Rush has a considerable chance of screwing over the user, either not being strong enough to do considerable damage or straight up missing. It also has a considerable chance to gain BP and break through things it may not be able to with other Ground attacks. I believe uncompetitive strats allow the user to rely on RNG to win rather than skil, forcing unviable strategies to counter. Bone Rush to me, while it does have an RNG factor, is not to the point in which it makes users rely on luck to win. It doesn't take unviable strats to counter Bone Rush either (most common ways to deal with Ground type attacks still apply for Bone Rush). In addition, the chance to fail and not be at an effective BP isn't a meaningless value, and can be severely punished for doing so thanks to Smokomodo's fraility. I think people that are against Bone Rush just do not want to lose to cheese, and use the uncompetitive argument as a shield. The fact that this phenomenon actually exists in standard play (Bullet Seed Breloom) and has not been banned nor deemed uncompetitive in nature further proves my point. Hax is something that is common place in Pokemon and is something we will always have to deal with, as annoying as being fully paralyzed three turns in a row is.

That rant out of the way, we gotta justify Bone Rush, which actually is not hard. Komodo Dragons, while voracious predators, are also notorious scavengers. And what is more associated with carrion than anything else? Bones. Bone Rush being granted to a Pokemon due to having some connections to scavenging is not even new, as Mandibuzz also gets the move.

Simple Event. Celebrate is for the occasion, Eruption is a powerful "signature" attack, Magnitude is a cool meme secondary STAB, and Camouflage cuz chameleons. OT Jackson is a hail to the Jackson's chameleon, which is what Smokomodo is heavily based on. The ID is the year of the species discovery.

Total Moves: 79

Poison Gas - I initially planned on including the attack, but Smokomodo's movepool is crammed as is, and has enough poisonous volcanic smoke flavour in Smog and Clear Smog without feeling like saying "why is this not a Poison type?"
Low Sweep - Smoko doesn't seem capable nor willing to do Low Sweep. While Low Kick is a commonly distributed attack across several types, Low Sweep is a lot rarer and is more exclusive to Fighting types. Also, its basically to avoid the same argument from Poison Gas too.
Horn based moves - Smoko was already crammed for move slots and I think that these would only fit via level up and wouldn't be as flavourful as whats already present. Chameleons notably use horns more for a symbol of strength than weaponry anywaysBonemerang - lol gg wp

The level-up distribution is equivalent to Incineroar's and aims for a similar balance of utility and offensive moves. I wanted to focus on capitalising on the Smoke aspect of its design with the various Smog moves and the volcanin Fire and Ground stabs. Flame Wheel and Flare Blitz are perhaps the least 'volcanic' or 'earth like' however they are its most important physical Fire stabs and should be included for that reason. The reason I've made Dragon Breath the evolution move is because I imagine it being most like a Dragon here in its final form. Eruption I think is fine as a flavour move as it's often worse than Overheat, and would likely not be run in Acid Spray sets as it will take away from other viable coverage as it would likely have to be run with Fire Blast. I was debating between Horn Attack and Quick Attack, but ultimately settled on Quick Attack since its not a particularly problematic priority move and is often found at that level range (1-20) and is in the level up moves of quite a few lizard and reptile like starters ie. Helioptile, Treecko, and in some of the Fire starters like Cyndaquil and Torchic. The trapping moves and Shadow Claw as Heart Scale moves fits with Pokemon like Charizard specifically, and Eruption of course as the final move in its moveset is often relearnable.

A lot of the TMs that have been chosen fit into logical stab TMs as well as types that have already been approved or have directly stronger equivalents such as Brick Break, Poison Jab, Sludge moves. Low Sweep is fine considering move likes Force Palm and Bulldoze exist. Smart Strike is a fairly harmless coverage options that don't threaten counters (specifically Latios) with 2HKOs and also has a relatively weak Z move, and is flavorful because of its (Smart strike comes to all horned Pokemon). Snarl is weaker than other special moves in terms of base power and coverage against some of the counters, but has interesting utility, and is flavorful for appearing on a few Dragon like and lizard pokemon (Scraggy, Scrafty, Druddigon). Nature Power fits with the theme of volcanic pokemon (Cyndaquil line, Slugma line, Camerupt, Torkoal etc.)

Depending on how we approach this, I would say

TM59 - Incinerate from Gen V and VI be used to fit it in. Otherwise I'll make it a Heart Scale move like for Heatmor, and Victini.

Poison Fang - Can be bred from EkansAcid Spray - Can be bred from EkansStealth Rock - Can be bred from TyruntMorning Sun - Can be bred from EspeonCircle Throw - Can be bred from Whismur (as a second chain)Force Palm - Can be bred from BreloomStorm Throw - Can be bred from Pancham or Pangoro (as a second chain)Mach Punch - Can be bred from BreloomBullet Punch - Can be bred from Pangoro
Pursuit - Can be bred from Treecko

Unique Moves: 10

I thought Field and Dragon for the reasons that Kecleon is from the Field Egg group, and some similar lizards like Sceptile, Arbok, Charizard etc. are in the Dragon egg group. Arbok, Seviper, Scraggy and Scrafty are in both the Field and Dragon egg groups. Scrafty in particular I think is quite similar in style to Smokodo conceptually as a stylised generic Lizard. Outside of Flavor reasons it's a great way to add some of the more niche mandatory moves onto the set without having to jam them into the Level-Up moves. Pursuit is the only non compulsory move I could think of as an interesting option that received a little bit of discussion but hasn't been explicitly banned or accepted. It is also an egg move for some reptile or dragon like Pokemon ie. Arbok, Snivy, Aerodactyl.

As far as the current flavor moves, I chose Iron Tail because of the size of its tail and that a lot of Dragon-style pokemon like Charizard and Salamence have access to it. Endeavor is another move that a lot of Reptile like Pokemon like Sceptile, Axew and Rhyperior. The other flavour moves are more or less generic Fire and Ground moves, and or coverage types like Fighting and Steel that have been approved and are mostly outclassed by the compulsory moves.

Total moves: 82

The current moves that I'm on the fence about are Shadow Claw, Thief, Pursuit, and Brutal Swing because of how they potentially interact with Latias and Latios. I omitted Dragon Claw based on Hawk1113's previous discussion about its potential danger as a Z-Move, but think that these moves may be fine because they are weaker, outside of Pursuit which is an interesting move and one that Hawk1113 didn't find too problematic calc wise, and don't have particularly high base power Z-Moves. I think they warrant further discussion.

EDIT: Have removed Thief, Shadow Claw and Brutal Swing from my submission. I have kept Pursuit because of its interesting utility, lack of strong Z-move and interesting interaction with Technician (plus it does nothing to Lati switch ins, because it will hit the leaving Pokemon).

Banned deucer.

The current moves that I'm on the fence about are Shadow Claw, Thief, Pursuit, and Brutal Swing because of how they potentially interact with Latias and Latios. I omitted Dragon Claw based on Hawk1113's previous discussion about its potential danger as a Z-Move, but think that these moves may be fine because they are weaker, outside of Pursuit which is an interesting move and one that Hawk1113 didn't find too problematic calc wise, and don't have particularly high base power Z-Moves. I think they warrant further discussion.

Shadow Claw is the move with lower base power among the ones quoted, so I will only post the calculations for it - the other ones have even better results. It 2HKOes Latios-mega with ease, even without an item. It 3HKOes Latias-mega w/o an item, but with Life Orb, it is an easy 2HKO. Given how we wanted to preserve both Lati@s as counters on previous discussions, I am strongly against the addition of these moves on Smokomodo's movepool.

Shadow Claw is the move with lower base power among the ones quoted, so I will only post the calculations for it - the other ones have even better results. It 2HKOes Latios-mega with ease, even without an item. It 3HKOes Latias-mega w/o an item, but with Life Orb, it is an easy 2HKO. Given how we wanted to preserve both Lati@s as counters on previous discussions, I am strongly against the addition of these moves on Smokomodo's movepool.

Agreed with you here. I think based on the fact that Shadow Sneak and ALL bug coverage is banned, we should be extremely, extremely cautious in allowing any Dark, Ghost, or Dragon coverage of 60 BP or greater in order to preserve the Lati@s as checks/counters. I checked out for the tail-end of movepool and am surprised these aren't blanket banned. I stand by Pursuit being fine because it is unviable as a Z-move. I think Shadow Claw might be okay from these calculations, as a lot has to go right to beat the Lati@s with it (we need rocks up, which we admittedly provide ourselves, and also need to have them come in on Shadow Claw and then eat another Shadow Claw or two).

pokehimon's set avoids other controversial moves that aren't outright banned ("double boosts" like Dragon Dance, Swords Dance, Quiver Dance, etc, Bone Rush, Close Combat/Super Power) so I think Shadow Claw might be okay, but I would move to ban All physical Dark, Dragon, and Ghost coverage of BP 75+ (including Technician). This would remove Thief and Brutal Swing as eligible moves from this set, and preemptively prevent any set submissions with similarly dangerous moves such as Shadow Punch, Bite, Dual Chop, Dragon Claw, Dragon Tail, Crunch, and Feint Attack.

Agreed with you here. I think based on the fact that Shadow Sneak and ALL bug coverage is banned, we should be extremely, extremely cautious in allowing any Dark, Ghost, or Dragon coverage of 60 BP or greater in order to preserve the Lati@s as checks/counters. I checked out for the tail-end of movepool and am surprised these aren't blanket banned. I stand by Pursuit being fine because it is unviable as a Z-move. I think Shadow Claw might be okay from these calculations, as a lot has to go right to beat the Lati@s with it (we need rocks up, which we admittedly provide ourselves, and also need to have them come in on Shadow Claw and then eat another Shadow Claw or two).

pokehimon's set avoids other controversial moves that aren't outright banned ("double boosts" like Dragon Dance, Swords Dance, Quiver Dance, etc, Bone Rush, Close Combat/Super Power) so I think Shadow Claw might be okay, but I would move to ban All physical Dark, Dragon, and Ghost coverage of BP 75+ (including Technician). This would remove Thief and Brutal Swing as eligible moves from this set, and preemptively prevent any set submissions with similarly dangerous moves such as Shadow Punch, Bite, Dual Chop, Dragon Claw, Dragon Tail, Crunch, and Feint Attack.

You can call me Jiggly

Smokomodo's design is that of the brawler, first and foremost - the RPG character who wants to be in the middle of the fight, who excels at close range, and always has an out or three for any given situation, with little care for launching a cheap shot. From our competitive moves, I've played up in particular Fighting, Poison, and Steel elements, alongside Smokomodo's STAB options.

In terms of LU Pattern, keeping it simple are 3s, 4s, then 6s. Starting at 4 so that we don't have 4 moves by Level 6.

Wrestlin' Lizard
Let's look at some of our core flavour: We take inspiration from the Komodo Dragon, or at least close enough if our name is anything to go by, which gives us some useful structures.

There's a few flavour points I've focussed on here. First is the more generic 'lizard' elements - we have Lick, which is both good technician bait and also referential to Kecleon, as well as Screech, which performs double duty as both 'late game stat dropping move' and 'lizard flavour'.

I also want to look at (and I do thank Frostbiyt for pointing this one out to me) the notion of Komodo Dragons enjoying wrestling. Vital Throw and Storm Throw are my homages here, with the latter in particular being emphasised as the capstone move for Smokomodo. This flavour gets carried on further down the movepool.

Bite Me!
Given competitive obligations to Poison Fang, I have opted to give Smokomodo quite a broad range of 'biting' moves. Unfortunately Bite itself was off the table owing to chomping on Lati@s just a smidgen too hard, but Fire Fang and Hyper Fang are both represented here. Lizards are already known for being able to have quite a bite, and I liked being able to tie in a move which could otherwise be seen as suspect.

With a hint of sulphur...
I wanted to emphasise the fact that Smokomodo has some really heavy volcanic influences. Eruption is the most obvious, but Lava Plume and Earthquake both cement that idea.

I also wanted to play up the value of volcanic gasses in Smokomodo's movepool. Smokescreen is the most obvious one, but the toxic gasses you get from eruptions are also embedded through Smog and Poison Gas.

Miscellaneous Items
The priority punches are placed together in Heart Scale. Beyond satiating my general urge for similar moves to both go to HS together, I think it makes sense for Smokomodo to get it's throw moves naturally, whilst having to specifically work to get it's punches - whilst as a brawler Smokomodo is perfectly capable of jabs and haymakers, it's going to primarily default to grappling if it can.

Egg Groups
Right then. Egg Groups. I've decided to EXCLUDE Dragon, so I'm gonna explain that choice, since I spent waaay too long mentally anguishing over it. I think aesthetically Smokomodo definitely fits there - but there is a practical issue for me, and that is 'Dragon Claw / Tail', which are currently banned by competitive concerns. Even the lizards with the weakest 'Dragon' flavour in the Dragon egg group have access to one of Dragon Claw or Dragon Tail (even Heliolisk and Arbok have the latter). Due to Smokomodo's design, trying to justify Dragon with moves like Dragon Pulse is also out of the picture - it's most prominent design feature is a claw, there's no getting around the fact that if we want Dragon flavour, we really have to start with the physical (and banned) options. I've hence opted to instead lean into Kecleon's Field egg group (which, of course, was formerly the 'Ground' egg group), and I've also added on the Monster egg group, which is appropriate for a design which does not look like it would be out of place with other Kaiju. The Egg Group pairing is shared with the likes of Rhydon and Nidoking, where Smokomodo doesn't feel out of place.

Acid Spray
Acid Spray ties in neatly to previously established flavour with regards to the poisonous aspect of eruptions. Acid Spray in particular makes sense when you consider that one component of those poisonous gasses is Hydrochloric Acid. Can't imagine that being friendly to the skin...

Circle Throw
A continuation of previously established grappler flavour, more than anything.

Magnitude
Another move which emphasises the volcanic nature that Smokomodo presents, with volcanic eruptions being caused from earthquakes of a variety of magnitudes, not just the huge ones.

Metal Claw
Inspiration taken heavily from Charizard on this one - I wanted to play up the fact that Smokomodo does have a pretty large claw in it's design, and Metal Claw by Egg is something that Charmander has as well.

Fire Spin
Fire Spin is common to a good number of Fire-Type starters, most notably including fellow Dragon-Egg-Group starter Charizard.

Force Palm
Once again, playing into the notion of a brawler. Force Palm makes a decent amount of sense - I can imagine Smokomodo knowing exactly which pressure points it needs to hit in order to incapacitate a target.

Incinerate
Volcanic eruptions being as devastating as they are, it's no stretch of the imagination that Smokomodo can incinerate berries quite easily.

There's perhaps a bit of a running theme here - Fire, Ground, Poison, Fighting, and Steel are all well represented here. Super Fang warrants a special mention for being yet another "Fang" move to go alongside that established idea set.

Celebrate to mark the event, Lava Plume as the 'Sig' move, Bulldoze is complementary STAB, and Metronome is for consistency with our current CAP with event moves, Kerfluffle. Bottle Cap (Japanese: Silver Bottle Cap) is derived from CAP25, the Silver Anniversary of sorts. OT: Cooper harks back to the originator of CAP, Cooper, with the ID being their Smogon user number.

Before we start, I'd like to say I'm against glare. It's original japanese name is 'Snake's Glare', and Smokomodo is decidedly not a snake nor serpent. Explanations are getting their own sections because they get pretty long.

All moves listed as lvl 1-18 are learned 3 levels earlier than shown, and 17-36 up 2 levels because evolved mons learn moves at slower rates. Poison fang and other physical and liquid-ish poison moves aren't learned until the final stage because while sulfuric gases can be prevalent through all stages, I doubt any element of this mon's design will reference the komodo dragon, and by extension, their trademark venom until at least the second form. Also, since most of the heat coming "from" volcanoes is from convection and lava, I tried to stray away from moves that directly use fire over lava or heat that don't involve Smokomodo igniting itself by level up. Regardless, ending on fire spin is a reference to gen I - III Charizard. Technician implies this mom gets by through artful use of weak moves, so this LU pool culminates in it failing to learn Eruption (a pure 150 BP, no utility move) by level up, but rather from egg moves. More importantly...

As hilarious and unreliable +1/+1 eruption sounds, I'd rather not lose a game because nobody wants to keep clefable in on Smokomodo, so keeping Eruption as an egg move makes it and Z-Celebrate mutually exclusive. Plus, such a set would need two fire stabs to be usable after chip damage, at which point you'd run Blaze, failing the concept.
Anyway, the level up pool was getting dense with all the flavor and mandatories, so leftovers and unintuitive moves like bullet punch are here. Monster group denotes mons with kaiju-like appearances, Field group is a pigeonhole, since the other storm throw users are either Bug or Human-like group. I'd prefer not to rely on smeargle for 1/2 the egg moves.

Nobody responded to my bone rush post (sans misinformation), and it was kinda the end of the page, so I don't know how many saw it, but I won't regurgitate the whole thing here. After calcing misses, the chances of getting a bone rush stronger than EQ twice in a row are 34%. How often are you weaker than EQ?

(Miss%) + (Nonmiss%) x (2hit%) = 43.75%

Pressuring recover stall over time is a valuable and unique niche, and you can't say there's no risk compared to EQ. 'Rush is fine.

Before anyone wonders about Mud Shot, an uninvested Bulldoze is still stronger than 252 SpA Mud shot.

Sunny Day and Focus Blast are ubiquitous among fire starters. I was going to include snarl as a cute tech on the bulky sets that were under consideration, but the drops turn Lati@s 2hkoes on Smokomodo into 3hkoes, which means they walk out of the fight with very little health. If surfless or EQless sets try to recover before taking it out on a morning sun, then they won't have enough SpA to actually kill Smokomodo, so I left Snarl off. Smart strike is described as a horn stab that never misses, perfect for a skilled, horned being even if it misses the technician boost. There's no Sludge Wave because Sludge Wave hits by slinging toxins every which way - including at partners, something a so called technician likely wouldn't do. I mean, even eruption doesn't hit allies in doubles.

Technician is all about giving power to utility moves, and covet gives thief's utility without slaying lati@s. Super fang gives us a cool stallbreaking set with adequate speed, hazard control, and volt switch blocking, and bind is there so we can use our tongue after lick loses relevance. Smokomodo's tail is a tad thin for for Iron Tail, but hey, if Alakazam can learn it, anyone's game. Laser Focus because after all this talk of skill and technicians, I've headcanon'd Smokomodo as an analytic reactionary fighter.

I was all for Pursuit when I started writing, but I think there's enough on this plate as is...

I'd normally agree with this sentiment but Glare's usage also extends to several reptillian pokemon that aren't snakes such as Druddigon, Heliolisk and Drampa (kinda). Also Revenankh has glare, a decidedly not-snake mon, so even by CAPs own standards it wouldn't really be a big deal to give it Glare for flavor purposes.

Banned deucer.

I strongly disagree with the inclusion of Glare in Smokomodo's movepool. Smoky naturally forces out Electric-types, which are the only pokemon immune to Glare. Add that to the fact that it completely cripples all of our checks and counters on a switch, potentially allowing Smoky to 1v1 them, and you've got yourself a broken pokemon.
Glare is extremely overcentralizing. For example, since people realized it's potential in Zygarde and Serperior, these pokemon got skyhigh usage in their Glare sets in OU (Serperior even moved from UU to OU). Even Druddigon found itself in a few builds as a lead with hazards + Glare.
As much as I'd love Glare for flavor, it is not a good idea to give it to Smokomodo.

We have the technology.

I strongly disagree with the inclusion of Glare in Smokomodo's movepool. Smoky naturally forces out Electric-types, which are the only pokemon immune to Glare. Add that to the fact that it completely cripples all of our checks and counters on a switch, potentially allowing Smoky to 1v1 them, and you've got yourself a broken pokemon.
Glare is extremely overcentralizing. For example, since people realized it's potential in Zygarde and Serperior, these pokemon got skyhigh usage in their Glare sets in OU (Serperior even moved from UU to OU). Even Druddigon found itself in a few builds as a lead with hazards + Glare.
As much as I'd love Glare for flavor, it is not a good idea to give it to Smokomodo.

Competitively, I’m not sure I agree. A lot of our counters are slow, defensive mons that would prefer paralysis to Toxic, including Gastrodon, Arghonaut, Pyroak, Slowking, and bulky Pelipper. It’s true that Glare will mess with Scarf Lando and most Lati sets, but it certainly isn’t a dealbreaker for those mons; they still threaten out CAP25f when paralyzed. And mons like Chansey and Pajantom don’t care either way.

This is obviously all theorymon, but I think Toxic would be the preferred status on any CAP25f set, with Glare getting a potential slash.

I think you might be overlooking the fact that all of these pokemon are at least 3HKOed by Smoky's required coverage (I will post the calculations later). The random chance of one paralysis getting rid of one of your (if not the only) Smoky counters on the team scares me. It is a gamble game, comparable to the main argument against Bone Rush - it's all about luck.
Glare also makes pokemon like Lati@s-mega, that should be a reliable counter, crippled for the rest of the battle. The reduced speed and chance to waste a turn not being able to attack shouldn't be overlooked.

You can call me Jiggly

Alright, so a few notes on what makes a realistic looking Gen 7 Starter Movepool, as well as notes from DHR-107 that help when it comes to making a starter in general. The aim of this post is to try to get our movepools looking as much like realistic Gen 7 starters as we can!

(Post approved by Quanyails. If there are errors in it, yell at me ^^; )

Starter Core Moves
Starters each historically in the Level Up movepool have a handful of moves they're guarenteed. These moves don't have to be in the final evo (Swampert for instance doesn't get Hydro Pump, and needs Mudkip on that front to get the move), but they have to either be there or within the pre-vo movepool.

To wit, these moves are as follows, courtesy of DHR;

CORE – ANY ONE OF Tackle/Scratch/Pound
ANY ONE OF Growl/Tail Whip/Leer/Withdraw

Grass – ANY OF Vine Whip/Razor Leaf/Leafage/Absorb/Leech Seed/Synthesis
ANY OF Mega Drain/Giga Drain/Energy Ball/Seed Bomb
First evo learns all moves before Level 50

Fire – ANY OF Ember
ANY OF Flame Wheel/Flame Burst/Flamethrower/Flare Blitz
First evo learn all moves before Level 50 (Apart from Cyndaquil)

Water – ANY OF Water Gun/Bubble
ANY OF Hydro Pump
First evo learns all moves before Level 50

This actually only mandates four moves for each type, but it's something that's very important in developing a starter movepool that's going to feel like a starter.

Generation Seven Specific Notes
Gen 7 Starters have a few quirks that can make your movepools truly gel with Primarina, Decidueye, and Incineroar.

I'd say the first one is something we should all try to follow, whilst the latter two are more general observations that are more easily breakable?

Heart Scale moves, Evolution Moves and Level 0 Moves
Starters have some fairly strict rules for these particular moves, which often need to be handled delicately...

First, let's break down what these terms mean. I've put that bit into this Hide Tag;

Evolution moves are a new thing - essentially, they are always learnt when a Pokemon evolves. A Weedle that evolves into a Kakuna will always learn Harden, regardless of if the evolution happens at Level 7 or Level 70.

Level 0 moves are essentially moves learnt at Level 0. Some websites will display this differently (Veekun uses a - to indicate these moves, whilst Bulbapedia marks them as being Level 1 moves, which is the same thing). These are the moves that would be learnt if you were to hatch an egg containing the Pokemon in questions.

We then have Heart Scale moves. These are Level 0 moves which are not in the final four Heart Scale moves. As an example, let's say we have a Pokemon with the following movepool:

We would say that the Heart Scale moves are Blast Burn and Giga Impact. If you were to hatch an egg with that move setup, then you would hatch a Pokemon that has learnt Frenzy Plant, Hyper Beam, Hydro Cannon, and Roar of Time.

Now, there's a few simple rules that G7 starters all follow;

The Evo. move (usually a signature move) appears as the Evo. move, and then as a Heart Scale move

The four non-Heart Scale Level 0 rules are split into two pairs. The first two are the Level 0 moves for the Starter Prevos, the latter two are the first two moves the starter learns (Usually around level 4 and then level 8 or so).

Notice how Incineroar repeats the Growl-Lick Pair, and has HS moves of Darkest Lariat, Bulk Up, and Throat Chop.

Capstone Move
Incineroar, Primarina, and Decidueye all have a 'capstone' move (that is, their last move) as either a non-damaging move, or as an off-STAB attack. This might just be chance - Prima's Misty Terrain may imply that there's just less general care overall in the last move - but there is definitely no obligation to wrap up your movepools up with the standard 'big' moves.

Late-Game Stat Debuff
Another notable quirk of the Gen 7 trio is that each at Level 49 picks up a stat lowering move - Featherdance/Scary Face/Captivate. You can pick if you want to follow this or not (it's certainly not true of all starters), but it's an example of the patterns you can spot from within starter movepools.

Alot of these moves are what you'd expect from a fire starter, or even just an evolved fire pokemon with more powerful moves the higher you get, and this is no different, it also features the late level 40 stat lowering move (Credit to dogfish44 for the idea) gen 7 starters feature and also some of the other starters. Outside of counter and metal claw, the rest of the moves are either required moves (bold) or stab level up moves with increasing power as the levels become higher, so i'm not gonna go into detail as to why they're there, but i will with counter and metal claw.
Counter: Counter was a general thought to help it out if it's able to take a hit, or if you're running a focus sash, allowing you to deal with physical pokemons in one fell swoop, however given only 88 hp and 67 defense, it's a risky move to pick, so be careful.
Metal Claw: Given that bullet punch is a required move, i thought metal claw would be fitting to deal with the types that may resist or be immune to Smokomodo's 2 stabs but is weak to steel, like rock types that's immune to ground, a good example being Stratagem, who's levitate is gonna be key in dealing with smokomodo, however with metal claw + technician, it becomes a 75 base power move, and with that metal claw can actually be viable in dealing with pokemons like Stratagem, while also allowing to deal with pokemons like togekiss who would easily switch in on an earthquake, and if for some reason you're slower (which normally you shouldn't be, but i chose togekiss due to type in this example, not speed) metal claw can be good to punish pokemons that think they can get a free switch-in, however this is not too much of an effect on flash fire pokemons as they're mainly fire types.
However with bullet punch adding priority it may be chosen more, but metal claw will allow you a higher damage output than bullet punch, at the cost of no priority, however where i think metal claw can shine are choice scarf sets, making use of it's relatively decent speed at base 97 to become a fast and fierce foe, with powerful moves to back it up.

The first 5 moves are mandatory, and i think all of them fit as egg moves, and the last 2 moves aren't anything special. Vaccum wave is special mach punch, should you choose to run mixed/special. Drill run is another stab move, with high crit rate, so it can be used should you prefer crits over a bit of power in technician bulldoze or earthquake.

So outside of the bold moves which are mandatory moves, there's not alot of different moves, and outside of flamethrower, sunny day and sandstorm which are not mandatory, but helps it, there's 5 moves that i want to talk about.
Bulk Up: Given it's already good 116 attack stat, swords dance was out of the question, and yes i could have went with howl on another category, i thought bulk up was a nice fit, increasing it's already poor 67 defense by a little, while increasing it's good attack, allowing it to use it's priority moves that hit 60 bp or it's 97 speed to do alot of damage, this may be seen as too strong, but i think it's borderline.
Brick Break: Like drain punch (See move tutor moves) i thought fighting type coverage would fit it well, and outside of chansey, which fully defensive does 31.3 - 37%, but with force palm as an egg move, it does more hitting 90 power instead of 75, so i don't think this is too bad.
Shadow Claw: This one is a bit iffy, mainly due to the mega latias/latios meaning to check, however only doing 36.8 - 43.4% to latias and 51.8 - 61.1% to latios, meaning it won't kill, even with a crit, however never ending nightmare does kill latios, but not latias, Latios does one shot with draco, while latias psychic 2 shots, and never ending nightmare into bp doesn't kill latias, these are all done with standard ou mega spreads and adamant 252 attack on Smokomodo, and both latios and latias are faster so i think it's fine.
This move is allowed due to it hitting 70 BP compared to 80 BP which is the cut off, so while it may affect the lati matchup a bit, it's not too bad.
Smart Strike: This kind of felt like it matched up well, simply due to the horn on Smokomodo's head and smart strike being attacking with a horn, plus with bullet punch as a mandatory move, and metal claw being learned via level up, and having a higher base power with technician at 75 compared to smart strike's 70, but at the cost of 95 accuracy, i felt this fit well as a solid reliable physical steel-type attack given that it cannot miss.
Roar: Given due to dragon tail being banned because of 90 power (60 base + 1.5x from technician) i decided to give it roar, since i liked the idea of a phasing move on Smokomodo.

There's not really many moves here that stand out, either mandatory or stab, and while i say this alot, it's true and i don't feel like i need to go into detail as to why i chose alternative stabs, as to that's how alot of movesets go, featuring numerous moves, that usually serve little to no competitive viability, but are still not bad, so i'm gonna go over the non mandatory/stab moves.
Iron Tail: Good steel-type coverage with 100 base power, however at the cost of 75% accuracy, it's high risk high reward, with its most damaging steel-type move being metal claw at 75 power, it's a nice power buff, plus it allows for a good corkscrew crash nuke at 180 base power, allowing for quite a damage output on the physical side.
Snatch: Snatch is a nice move, allowing you to prevent status moves, but instead of taunt, you get to use them yourself, plus z-snatch boosting your speed by 2 stages, it allows for some great sweeping potential, however it's weakness to water and ground without good coverage to deal with them, especially with alot of pokemons that can take a hit and revenge kill it, plus speed is not everything, but it definitely will help Smokomodo's mediocre speed, so i think it has a purpose on this build, plus you're sacrifising a held item and a team z-move, so it's a risky choice, but in the right situation it can be worth it, plus it doesn't get any other dark-type attacks to utilize for black hole eclipse, so i think that it's gonna be borderline, but it has a purpose, and it's not uncounterable, so i think it's fine.
Laser Focus: Nice move allowing you to always crit unless the opponent has an ability preventing it, but it's low bulk and costing you a turn makes up for the power.
Drain Punch: Like brick break (tm moves) it's powerful, plus it gives a bit of recovery, but force palm (egg move) has more power, so i think it's fair.

Not gonna talk too much, each one has a reason, and i'll explain why.
Eruption: This needs a legality check, but it's not too strong, but with only base 97 speed it's not easy to use outside of choice scarfs, and even if you are there's pokemons that wall it hard time, like slowking, like pelipper with rain, like gastrodon etc, 3 of it's main counters, plus it has some other counters that take little damage and can easily revenge kill, or atleast help dent Smokomodo, so it's risky.
Flame Wheel: Combined with technician, flame wheel hits 90 power, 100% accuracy, always thaws should you get frozen, and has a 10% burn chance, it's a nice strong spammable physical fire-type attack, and i think it fits well.
Screech: For defense lowering shenanigans, to do more damage.
Lick: Just because i felt it's pre-evolution could get lick, doesn't really have any competitive viability.

Outside of bulldoze, there's a few unique moves, and i'll be going over why i think they makes sense, or atleast fits.
Celebrate is due to it being cap 25, and a celebration cap, it makes sense if all starters (atleast to me) gets celebrate.
Fire Lash: A good spammable fire-type attack that lowers defense, however only hitting 80 power and no burn chance, it's spammable yes, but you're generally not gonna take a hit with a 88-67-78 spread defensively, so it's good for breaking walls, but not really a good move unless you know you can take a hit.
Smokescreen: Only really there because it fits the design, nothing special though.
Bulldoze: 90 power with technician, lowers speed, and is stab (135 power with stab) nothing surprising, only really there to fill the last slot, just thought i'd go over it quickly.
The OT are made up of the 2 latin words draco and magnus, which when translated together like that means "The great dragon"
The ID is the alphabetical location of Ijen (it's a capital i in the beginning), a volcano complex in indonesia, which is the country where komodo dragons come from (atleast some of the islands) and i thought that a volcano in the country komodo dragons live in was fitting for the ID (Since none of the other islands fit like that, and i already did water and grass that way)
The location is komodo island, a real life island in the komodo national park located in indonesia, and home to the komodo dragon, which is how the island got it's name, which fit pretty well.

Given it's incredible ability in technician, and great offensive typing in fire and ground, the idea was to try and give it access to alot of moves it can abuse with technician for coverage, but not allowing it much set up, forcing it to do what it does best: Fire off powerful stab moves and technician boosted moves. My goal was to give it moves that could benefit an offensive play style, while also giving it a way to boost in bulk up, however it's lack of good set-up moves outside of bulk up means that a wall of the opposite category (Physical or Special) can easily wall it if it doesn't run the right set, while mixed doesn't get the same power as focusing on one, making it a powerful wall breaker, against the right opponents with the right sets. And should you choose to run bulk up, you're left with poor defensives to try and take a hit, so you generally can't get more than 1 bulk up off unless you get it on a switch in, and you have a focus sash, but you still have checks/counters despite being +2 attack and +2 defense, so again, offensive pokemon with a good coverage movepool, but frail and easy to take down with the right checks and counters, and chipped away at quite well for anything with priority or that outspeeds it.

Thank you all for reading my idea for Smokomodo's moveset, and if you have an idea, please let me know so i can fix it, and should you find alot of changes, but still like it, as long as you give me credit, you're allowed to copy from my post, because in the end, it's not who gets picked for the moveset, it's which moveset fits it's role best, to try and make this pokemon what it deserves to be.
Thanks for reading
~Madsi6

I pulled most of my inspiration from a combination of Charizard and Incineroar levels, as well as the general build of moves from Incineroar. For the L49 Debuff I decided Acid Spray was the most notable. Incineroar also has a 120 BP off-STAB move at L60 and a 100 BP off-STAB move at 66, so Gunk Shot and Iron Tail made perfect sense.

Heart Scale moves are all throwing related because when Smokomodo evolves it finally feels comfortable using its arms for more than just swiping attacks. The rest of its level-up movepool only includes Tech-boosted slashing moves like Scratch, Fury Swipes, and Metal Claw. Eruption because its a natural design choice. I also included Mind Reader and Inferno combination because as a technical fighter, locking on to something seems like a natural selection.

Prior evolutions give Incinerate and Dig because those moves are much harder to come by in G7, and as they are STAB they naturally fit in a level-up movepool. The general movepool is a combination of Fire, Ground, Normal, Poison, and Steel type moves, and the combination lets it fill out an Incineroar-esque movelist nicely.

Monster/Field is selected because Smokomodo is a dead ringer for Jackson's Chameleon. While some dragon flavoring fits, the design is really more similar to common lizards, which share more in common with the Monster and Field groups. Marowak and Charizard are both in the Monster Egg group, while Kecleon is in the Field group. Maximum Egg Move size of most G7 mons is 7 Egg moves, so it's at the limit.

As to the moves themselves, priority is commonly in Egg movepools, as often are lower powered off-main offensive stat attacking options. Poison Fang is not learned at level-up except by very jaw-focused Pokemon, and Swift is the quintessential Tech-boosted move of the past.

Happy Hour has the same Z-Effect as Celebrate, but also doubles money after a battle. Pay Day is Technician boosted and its original user is a Technician Pokemon (Meowth). Incinerate in the third slot because this set gives you money to burn. Finally, Metronome because everyone loves Metronome event CAPs. Combine with Smogon meme for maximum entertainment value. Notably, this makes Happy Hour illegal with priority or Bone Rush.

Fissure: Smokomodo is a tactical fighter in my view, not a high-risk high-reward type.
Iron Head: Smokomodo is a smart mon and doesn't seem like it would use headbutts for attacks. I also don't like speed control + flinch.
Sludge Wave: Sludge Wave has very poor distribution and mostly aquatic Pokemon get it.

Flavor Summary:
This Smokomodo movepool is designed to portray Smokomodo as an intelligent tactical fighter that gains significant prowess with its arms and upper body upon final evolution. Storm Throw isn't STAB, but Technician in combination with its guaranteed critical hit makes it nearly as strong as one. Like other tactical fighters, including some with Technician like Breloom it gets a low-accuracy STAB move combination with Mind Reader within its movepool. Its movepool progresses naturally from weaker attacks to stronger attacks within the same type option. Smokomodo utilizes Smogs and Smokescreens as part of its volcanic design, which also incorporates Lava Plume and Eruption.

Egg Moves give Smokomodo even more technical options it would only learn through breeding, and tutors and TMs follow largely the same pattern as level-up, filling in gaps on movepool types and adding a few flavor moves. The Event Moves are pure money, literally.

My movepool follows a similar level up pattern to the newest Fire-type starters like Delphox and Incineroar, while heavily referencing it's chameleon and volcanic design. We'll start with a bunch of low base power moves and support options and a powerful option in Eruption, similar to how Incineroar's movepool progresses. Lava Plume is the evolution move of choice, referencing the volcanic aesthetic of the design. As the movepool progresses, it gets access to more weaker options such as Lick, which is common on lizard and tough pokemon such as Kecleon and Gengar, respectively, and Smog. It gains more powerful options towards the middle of the movepool - with STAB options such as Flame Wheel and Magnitude -, as well as the support move Swagger, which I personally think fits the design quite nicely. As it levels up even further, it gains more powerful moves in Slash (common in designs with claws), Earthquake and Flare Blitz for power STAB options, as well as Camouflage - referencing it's chameleon design. Later, it gets Fissure - which is a nice flavor move - as well as Burn Up, referencing scorched earth and dead volcanoes.

CAP25f-1 - Fire Spin
CAP25f-1, CAP25f-2 - Clear Smog

Fire Spin is a weak, trapping, Fire-type move that was in one of our approved movesets. It is seen as a "by a prior evolution" move in other Fire-type pokemon such as Blaziken. Clear Smog is also in one of the approved sets, and can also reference it's design. Nothing much else to say about it.

Given to how this is a celebration CAP and Celebrate was one of the approved sets (it is also only available via events), I gave it in two separate events. As discussed in Discord, that is a good way to not mess w/ Caribolt's movepool as well.
The second event is to celebrate women empowerment and honor the brazilian Maria da Penha law, that protects women from domestic violence. Maria da Penha is an amazing woman who spoke up about the domestic abuse she was suffering and that led to the creation of this extremely important law, which is referenced by the OT (Penha) and ID (11340/60).
Thank you Dogfish44 for kindly allowing me to use your event teamplate!

I added a lot of Fighting- and Poison-type moves for flavor. Fighting-type coverage doesn't mess with our threatlist and approved movesets and neither does Poison-type coverage, since Gunk Shot (the most powerful, physical, Poison-type move) was already allowed. I wanted to reference it's tough design with Fighting-type moves and the komodo reference in it's name with more Poison-type moves like Sludge Bomb and Poison Jab.
I disallowed any powerful Dark- and Ghost-type coverage like Shadow Claw, Thief and Brutal Swing since, as already discussed, these moves shouldn't be allowed given how they easily break through the Lati@s.

I decided to put 25f on the Field egg group as it's designs fits with the rest of the group extremely well, as well as giving it the movepool options it needed. Dragon egg group was added mainly for flavor, given how similar it is to other pokemon in the Dragon egg group and adding Dragon Breath, but also allowed it to get some of the required moves.
The breeding moves are mostly moves that I don't think would particularly fit with the design by themselves to be in the level up section, so I added them via breeding.

Wanted to give some feedback on sets. Didn't get to everyone, but here we go.

iFeedback: Love it for the most part. You avoid the major pitfalls, hit the major flavor moves (Eruption, Lava Plume) that I expect, and have a clear flavorful angle with the poison and fighting coverage to show a clever, dangerous komodo warrior. Easily my front-runner for favorite moveset. My only area of concern is Ancient Power. We barred all physical rock coverage for a reason; rock gives us an easy way to overpower Gyarados and Pelipper without having to surrender our HP slot. We bandied about a special-attacking set in the thread and it didn’t suck as a lure, so Ancient Power is fairly dangerous.

Because we naturally outspeed these ‘mons Special Rock coverage is dangerous and that’s before we get into the 10% chance of supreme hax giving us +1 to everything. I don’t know if it is the end of the world, as running Ancient Power means giving up Stealth Rock, Defog, Will-o-Wisp, Morning Sun, or Work Up which are all amazing moves - 25f actually managed to get enough spicy stuff to end up with serious 4MSS. But it makes me nervous. I’d like to see a little justification as to why that move is so essential.

Wadusher: This is a very basic barebones setup for 25f - we’ve got all required moves plus three of the five “flavor moves” that I can see being common to Smokomodo (in your case, Eruption, Lava Plume, and Fissure which is unique so far). A month ago I might have worried about so much strong Steel coverage but since we now carry Gunk Shot and Bullet Punch is mandatory, I don’t think it’s a huge concern - I can’t think of too many ‘mons that get smoked by Iron Tail that we aren’t already going to crush with Gunk Shot (Clefable, Jumbao) or Bullet Punch spam (Stratagem, M-Aerodactyl). There’s nothing that stands out to this set, but it is very functional. I look forward to some write-up explaining WHY you didn’t want to add anything particularly defining to the set. The only thing that stands out now is that you focused more on a cataclysmic monster (with Fissure and Mangnitude) than on the draconic, chameleon, or “fighty” nature that other submissions went with.

G-Luke: As the first set to include Bone Rush this one has my attention and curiosity. I was overall swayed that Bone Rush is fun, pro-concept, and not too dangerous. That’s the calling card of the set, but I do appreciate that you avoided anything that would make it too obnoxious. The onus is on you to once again show the calcs that Bone Rush is a safe choice that will be more flavor than gamebreaker for Smokomodo. We did end up giving Smokomodo some truly bonkers coverage including Storm Throw and Gunk Shot to break walls, and while that helps Bone Rush’s case in some ways (we have more powerful specialty tools and it may not be worth the loss in consistency compared to Earthquake and Bulldoze) it hurts it in others (does it need something that has a ~17% chance to completely pancake any grounded ‘mon when it got Storm Throw and Gunk Shot?). I also appreciate Camouflage as a flavor move.

Pokhimon: As I mentioned, I think Thief and Brutal Swing are completely unacceptable and Shadow Claw is very borderline. Thief is especially dangerous as it has additional value and utility above and beyond just being a 90 BP move to smack the Latis around. I do like the Dragonbreath as the sole Dragon typed move since the design feels very Kaiju to me. I was concerned on Dragonbreath before, but given that Dragonbreath is inferior to HP Ice and Force Palm competitively, I don’t think it’s a huge deal. I recommend removing Thief and Brutal Swing, and carefully considering whether it NEEDS Shadow Claw.

Wugus: We did want a special attacking lure set, so I have to imagine Mud Shot is fine - it’s basically just a worse Bulldoze, and a worse Earth Power for a special set. Glare really worries me. On the one hand, as noted in thread, Smokomodo is more likely to spam Toxic and Will-o-Wisp as its status moves of choice. On the other, given those niches I’d argue it doesn’t NEED Glare. Glare, like the banned speed boosting moves, makes it too easy to overwhelm our counters with a single click. It isn’t as bad as Flame Charge/Agility, since we can’t sweep with it, but on the other hand if completely cripples the Lati@s even if we fall in battle to them. Given that this is a flavor stage, and Glare is a proven competitive move, I think it’s a really bad idea to include it. It isn’t even a flavor slam-dunk or anything. Dragon Claw is also a move I’m on record as wanting to Ban, given its ability to threaten the Lati@s, our only two blanket checks. The last move that caught my eye is Coil. This is a competitive move, but one I think is relatively safe on Smokomodo given his complete lack of bulk. I was curious as to its inclusion, however, as I am not seeing the flavor.

Dogfish: If I wasn’t looking for a last-second addition of some Spicy Moves, this is my favorite flavor movepool. It hits all that volcanic goodness I wanted to see, and adds in a neat “Bitey” theme as well as a really cool “wrestler” flavor. A+.

Gale Wings Golurk: Other than Covet, which I like, there isn’t a lot here to comment on. I do like that you are the one person to acknowledge that even though Eruption is suuuuper flavorful, it is NOT a “flavor move”. For a special lure, it gives all the power of Blast Burn while being less of a dead-weight move outside of the 200 BP Inferno Overdrive it enables. We even have reliable recovery to fuel it! I am not sure it’s such a concern that we need to make it exclusive with Z-Celebrate, but I appreciate the thoughtfulness as I think a lot of the thread, myself included, has assumed this is just harmless flavor when it’s actually a crazy-powerful nuke that opens up a crazy-powerful Firium-Z lure set. On another note, this is just the sort of argumentation I was looking for for why Bone Rush will be a fun gimmick and not a real competitive move.

Hey, hawk1113, I absolutely love the idea of Eruption in Smokomodo's level-up moveset, and I think the fears of it being viable are overblown. Entei and Heatran are both Pokemon with access to Eruption. Entei has better Special Attack and Speed than Smokomodo, but it never sees use as a lure. Heatran has much better things to be doing with its Base 130 Special Attack. (Granted, it's locked on a Quiet nature.) jas also points out that Stealth Rock will make it hard for Smokomodo to come in with a full-power Eruption, making it much less reliable than Fire Blast on a Special Lure.

In general, if people have fears about a move being viable, I recommend you try it out on the Test Server. This makes you evaluate whether the move is worth putting on a moveset instead of in isolation!